


all the things i've never said

by notaroh



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Drunk Kissing, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, it's canon-compliant in terms of events just not in terms of relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25583884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaroh/pseuds/notaroh
Summary: A thousand years is a long time to be in love. Nicolò di Genoa knows this, knows how many people can't keep themselves in love for a normal lifespan, for even half of that. Perhaps he's just stubborn -- too stubborn to stay dead, too stubborn to fall out of love, too stubborn to even admit it.But he might be wrong. He probably isn’t, but he could be, and immortality has a way of bringing about certain absolutes so it’s best if he errs on the side of caution. There is a chance, Nicky thinks as he, Booker, and Joe pull up to their French safe house and shuffle hurriedly inside, that he isn’t in love with the one constant he’s had in a thousand years. Then he wishes he weren’t thinking about that right now because, frankly, it isn’t a good time.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 43
Kudos: 435





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is, all finished! This is canon-compliant with book one of the comic (Opening Fire) and more or less with the movie, though some details in the first 3 chapters are based on the comic version rather than the movie version, so while the major plot points will still make sense if you’ve only seen the movie, any differences are because I was going off the comics as my main “source material.”
> 
> The graphic depictions of violence archive warning primarily covers chapters 2 and 3; the rest is less focused on action or fighting and any violence is limited to short scenes or mentions rather than graphic descriptions. Any scenes or details that I felt warranted content warnings that only applied to short sections and aren’t tagged on the work as a whole are included as chapter notes on the relevant chapters. 
> 
> Shoutout to my friend Lukas, who sent me a recipe for munavõi, which in an earlier draft was more prominent but I made sure to include it because he asked his grandma for it. Also, shoutout to my other friend Noor, who gave me some suggestions for museums in Egypt, which I didn’t actually end up using but I did look into which led me to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina which I did use. On that note, all the locations mentioned are actual places (and the house in Tallinn is an actual house I picked off of google maps, so if anyone can find it I’ll give you… I don’t know, some kind of a prize). I did my best to be accurate with all the historical and cultural details that pop up, so hopefully nothing is glaringly wrong.
> 
> Finally, I hope you enjoy this! I’m off to reward myself for finishing it by reading Force Multiplied.

A thousand years is a long time to be in love. Nicolò di Genoa knows this, knows how many people can't keep themselves in love for a normal lifespan, for even half of that. Perhaps he's just stubborn -- too stubborn to stay dead, too stubborn to fall out of love, too stubborn to even admit it.

But he might be wrong. He probably isn’t, but he  _ could be _ , and immortality has a way of bringing about certain absolutes so it’s best if he errs on the side of caution. There is a chance, Nicky thinks as he, Booker, and Joe pull up to their French safe house and shuffle hurriedly inside, that he isn’t  _ in love  _ with the one constant he’s had in a thousand years. Then he wishes he weren’t thinking about that right now because, frankly, it isn’t a good time.

There are a few things that drive Nicky to the kitchen: stress, anger, and denial. Thanks to the prickling thought at the back of his mind, forcing him to think about his unrequited love -- but it might not even be that! -- when he is over his head with the first two, the moment Booker unlocks the door he’s shoving past and stomping into the kitchen.

This safe house is kind of a shithole. To be fair, at least half of them are, but this one’s bad from the rotting wood around the doorway to the old trash and still-bloody knives strewn around,  _ and _ the fact that it’s in France. The one thing it has going for it is a functional kitchen and proximity to a grocery store. Nicky throws open half the cabinets within a minute of stepping into the kitchen, reacquainting himself with the organization and taking a haphazard inventory of what food is still edible. It’s not like they left in a hurry the last time they stayed here, so he’s spared from any long-rotten cheese or vegetables turned to gel in their bags. It’s only been seven years, give or take, so the tools and gadgets shoved into the cabinets are all new as far as Nicky’s concerned. As he surveys the open cabinets, it occurs to him that there are a  _ lot _ of kitchen gadgets here. Nicky cooks when he’s upset. He impulse-buys unnecessary cooking tools when he’s distraught.

Joe steps into the kitchen and raises an eyebrow at the state of the room. He doesn’t say anything, just closes some of the cabinets he passes as he approaches the small wooden rack on which a few wine bottles are nestled. He studies them, and Nicky has to shake himself away from staring at the curve of his cheek or the way his lips purse as he reads each label. Joe picks out a bottle and turns to a cabinet. The glasses inside are wildly assorted; only one real wineglass sits among the mugs and tumblers. Joe takes it and an old-fashioned glass back to the other room as the half-muffled sound of the TV starts to bleed into the kitchen.

Right.

Last time they stayed in this safe house, he was jealous. The convenience of having a kitchen at hand to take out his emotions on is tainted as he remembers it’s all because the denial that sent him on his cooking kick wouldn’t go away and all the artisanal pasta rollers and “innovative” new pieces of cutlery in France could convince his brain to stop wanting Joe so badly.

Despite himself, his eyes follow Joe until he disappears past the doorway. In his absence, they land on a sausage stuffer taking up half a cabinet. Nicky decides that’s a sufficiently cathartic cooking project for tonight and goes around to close the rest of the cabinets.

“I need some fresh air,” Nicky calls as he passes through the main room, stuffing a handful of euros into his pocket.

“Don’t get kidnapped,” Booker says, barely turning away from the TV as he flips through the channels. 

Joe does look up from the wine he’s pouring and sets the bottle down next to the still-empty wineglass. “What he said.” He smiles. “Since that’s not a given right now.”

“I won’t get kidnapped,” Nicky promises. “I’ll only be out for a few minutes.” He ducks out the front door and lets his legs take him to the grocery store while his eyes stay on the lookout for anyone who looks like the wrong kind of suspicious for this neighborhood. More conscious than usual of the threat of capture, he pulls his hood over his head and tries to look like precisely the right kind of suspicious for this neighborhood. 

True to his word, Nicky doesn’t get kidnapped. As he marches through the fluorescent aisles of the surprisingly well-stocked grocery store, a part of him does wish he would. Get it over with, almost. But he tosses the spices and beef and collagen sausage casings and a few eggs for good measure into a basket and pays and walks back to the safe house with so little remark, it’s almost frustrating. He probably deserves one safe night, though, if he’s being honest, and there’s plenty of emotion still churning around his guts that needs some working through.

Joe and Booker glance at him as he passes back through the house, their hands twitching towards their guns at the sound of the door then relaxing at the sight of him. Joe reaches over and raises the wine bottle towards him, cocking an eyebrow in an expression that asks, clear as day, if he should fill up the second glass that still sits untouched on the table. Nicky nods, but doesn’t stop to wait for the wine as he continues into the kitchen and unloads his arms onto the counter.

The knives here aren’t really dull, but he gives one a few swipes across the honing rod anyway before taking it to an onion, blade flying across the cutting board until the acids sting his eyes and a pile of evenly-diced flecks of onion rests on the board. When he looks up, Joe’s there, leaning against the wall with Nicky’s wine in his hands.

“I brought this,” he says, holding up the glass, “but should I give it to you now when you’re busy with sharp objects?” His smile is uneven and contagious, and for a moment Nicky curses himself for being so happy to see Joe. God, it would be so much easier if it had been their little stint as sworn enemies that lasted all this time, rather than the friendship that followed it. If Nicky still believed to his very core, regardless of whether it were true, that he hated Joe implicitly. But he doesn’t, he loves Joe -- isn’t  _ in _ love, he’s decided for now, but just loves he can take -- and he knows it’s not  _ Joe _ he’s angry at. So he puts down the knife and grins back and comes over to take the wineglass and makes sure his fingers only barely touch Joe’s.

“You know Nicolò of Genoa never misses a shot,” he teases, taking a sip. It’s good wine. He thinks to save some for Andy. It’s the type she’d like.

“The scar from Buda in 1871 begs to differ.” Joe rubs the back of his head, feigning an ache.

“Well, considering you don’t have a single scar on you, my point stands.” He takes his wine back to his little workstation and pulls out a bowl, beginning to feed the meat through the grinder. It’s probably the oldest thing in this kitchen, and spinning the hand crank as fast as he can until all the beef is ground starts to chip away at the tension in his shoulders.

“You making anything for me?” Joe asks after a moment. 

Nicky tosses him the box of casings. “All of it,” he says. “I got halal.”

Joe reads the box and sets it down next to the clunky sausage stuffer. “Aww,” he coos. “You were thinking about me.”

_ I’m always thinking about you _ , Nicky doesn’t say. “Not specifically,” he does, which is technically true. He hadn’t gone out of his way to find halal ingredients, it just happened. Like it always happens when he’s the one doing the shopping. Like he doesn’t need to think to consider what Joe would prefer, like that’s all that matters on so deep a level he doesn’t even register it.

“Sure you weren’t.” Joe leans his head out of the kitchen. “Well, enjoy your kitchen while we’ve got it. Looks like football’s on. I’m joining Book.” He returns once more to the living room. 

Nicky hangs his head, closing his eyes for a moment before they focus on the bowl in front of him. He begins adding the onions, herbs, and spices to the beef and gives it a good, long glare before he begins to work it. If he is still thinking of Joe by the time he’s kneaded all this together, he swears to God… There is so much going on. There is so much uncertainty. There is so much to be afraid of. He needs to focus for once in his unending life.

He digs his fingers into the bowl and prays he will leave his straying thoughts at the bottom of this metal bowl.


	2. Chapter 2

There is something so calm about the evening that feels out of place to Joe. It’s comforting, but decidedly strange. He closes his eyes for a moment and the world is reduced to the too-soft chair under him, the half-stale air in the room around him, the sound of a football game crackling through a TV that hasn’t been touched in years, the smell of spices and meat drifting through the doorway from the kitchen. 

This is closer to what Yusuf al-Kaysani was made for -- not the endless fighting and dying and painful healing, but just being a person and finding the snapshots of life that are unremarkable enough to be forgotten, but beautiful enough that they deserve to be remembered. Joe’s a good artist. A good writer. He knows that. With a thousand years of practice, it would be impossible for him not to be.

Soldiers are better at being faceless than artists, though, and the past forty-eight hours have been a stark reminder of why being faceless is so crucial for people like them. He opens his eyes, leans his head back so the popcorn ceiling takes up his whole field of vision. For the best. He’s done so many things over the years because they are “for the best,” and some hurt worse than others. The rest and the results have always made the fighting worth it. Lately, there’s barely been any rest.

He’s tired.

Joe doesn’t notice he fell asleep until he’s woken up. One moment he’s staring at the ceiling, the next, his head snaps towards the source of the crashing noise fast enough to give him whiplash. As the pain in his neck fades and his bleary mind races to comprehend the flood of bodies into the safe house, he’s already being grabbed, wrenched from the chair and dragged towards the door.

Clouded by sleep and surprise, he’s too slow to do a thing. He doesn’t even register the first few things they bark, because it doesn’t occur to him to think in English for a few precious seconds. There are a dozen of them, and three are now dedicated to holding him in place. He tries to wriggle free, but all he manages to do is earn himself a few large bruises that fade before he’s pulled back into place.

Booker’s just sitting there.

He’s just sitting in his chair, eyes still half-closed and pointed towards the game. Joe looks to him in shock and confusion. “Booker, what the fuck?” Is he  _ dead _ ?

Booker blinks, just as unfazed as before, and when his eyes open they’re pointed directly at Joe. The other nine people, all masked and equipped with a small armory, are kicking through the room.

“There should be two more,” one mutters, and before it occurs to him how bad an idea it is, Joe’s head pivots towards the kitchen. One of the men holding him nods in the same direction. “Check the kitchen.” Fuck. A handful stop kicking around the already-disorganized living room and head through the doorway.

“And the last one?” another asks, looking directly at Booker.

“She’s not here,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. His strange behavior, the way these intruders haven’t touched him, dawns on Joe all at once.

“You fucking pig!” Joe screams, pulling an arm free only to have it recaptured before he can swipe at Booker, at the traitor who would throw two hundred years of unconditional family and companionship down the drain for  _ what _ ?

“Where is she?” someone asks.

“Out,” Booker says, looking at Joe.  _ I’m sorry _ , his eyes say, but Joe doesn’t believe him. “I’m not sure, really. Probably not even in the country.”

A grumble spreads through the gaggle of people before one pulls something from his vest. “Bullshit,” he says. “But we don’t have time for that right now. Tell you what. When she gets back, you keep her here long enough for us to collect. Then maybe your little agreement still stands.” He tosses something fist-sized into Booker’s lap. Before Joe can recognize it as anything more specific than “explosive,” it’s going off, and a moment later the chair’s more viscera than fabric and Booker’s head looks like the ground beef Nicky was making.

Ground beef that’s probably lying forgotten now, or scattered across the kitchen walls, as three of the four mercenaries that went into the kitchen drag out a still-struggling Nicky in a chokehold. What little of their skin is visible is purple, and Joe can’t help but feel a little embarrassed that he didn’t manage to get so much as a scratch on any of them. There has to be some way they can get out of this, warn Andy, do  _ something _ .

But as Nicky’s brought into the living room, the man who blew up Booker gestures to the empty front doorway. “The other one’ll be back. Take these two for now.” He looks at what Joe can only describe as the shell of Booker, physically and emotionally, and kicks at a limp leg. “If they’re for real, he’ll be decent bait. If not, that’s one less to deal with later.”

An anonymous arm wraps around Joe’s neck and pulls tight as he’s carried out the doorway. As consciousness slips away from him, he eyes an already-limp Nicky. He can’t remember the last time he felt a fury like this, like drowning in a thick, hot syrup that pours in from every direction. He grits his teeth and accepts unconsciousness without much of a fight. He still has time. He will bide it.

It’s a pothole that jostles him awake, the back of his head banging against some kind of wall that echoes with the  _ ting  _ of metal. His wrists and ankles are heavy, restrained with old-fashioned manacles. All around him are the half-dozen guns, sitting along each side of the rumbling box in silence. Okay, he thinks, so they’re in some kind of car. Joe has no idea where they are or where they’re going, doesn’t even know how long they’ve been in here or how much longer it will be.

At least he still knows where Nicky is: lying facedown on the floor, like he was tossed into the car as an afterthought. He lies still; as far as Joe can tell, he hasn’t woken up yet.

“Nicky?” he says.

“No talking,” the man sitting next to Joe grumbles. He sounds English -- they all have, Joe’s pretty sure -- and he wonders who else Copley is working with. Besides Booker, that is.

A thought shoots through him and it stings. Didn’t Nicky go out before he did? Shouldn’t he be back up by now? He presses his eyes closed, trying to banish the thought. Nicky’s not dead-- at the very least, not  _ dead _ . “ _ Nicolò _ ,” Joe says, desperation tinging his voice.

“I said--” the same man begins, but Joe cuts him off.

“What’re you gonna do, tough guy?” he asks. “Kill me?” Despite everything else taking up his energy right now, he spares half a thought to feel smug at the man’s stunned silence. As if a thousand years on this earth would leave him without a tongue.

“Nicolò, please, wake up.” He switches to Italian, willing to try anything just to dispel the part of his mind that’s convincing itself that Nicky’s going to be gone forever. “I need you here with me,” he whispers. He cringes at that, wishing he’d phrased it in a way that was less… blunt with his feelings. But he quickly realizes it’s probably fine, Nicky probably didn’t even hear that because he said it pretty quietly and, more importantly, it was drowned out by a long, breathy groan as Nicky stirs.

“Ugh… yeah. I’m here,” he says, “wherever ‘here’ is.” Joe recognizes the calculated movement in his eyes as he begins to sit up, keeping his movement relatively unthreatening while he searches for a weak point in their rumbling cage.

“Armored car, I think,” Joe tells him, and he switches from studying the walls to studying their captors. “They’re moving us.”

“I told you, shut the fuck up!” the man says. Joe’s head still pounds. These private soldier-types are all the same: obnoxiously full of themselves, they think themselves so much more important and just and in control than they ever are. He could say a million things,  _ wants _ to say a million things, but honestly he doesn’t care enough about any of these people to give them the satisfaction.

“They think we’re plotting, probably,” Joe continues, unfazed. Maybe he  _ will _ kill him, but as inconvenient and uncomfortable as that always is, part of him wants the satisfaction as all these people realize there is nothing they can do to him that will matter.

“Aren’t we?” Nicky replies, his gaze still drifting from mercenary to mercenary.

“I assumed that would go without saying.” 

Nicky’s eyes linger on the man next to Joe, dart across the car to the soldier currently holding the largest gun, then land apologetically on Joe.  _ Ooh _ , he thinks,  _ good idea _ .

Joe waits for a few seconds, then launches himself forward, driving his boot into the guy with the gun’s knee with a muffled crack. He barks in pain and surprise, then raises the barrel and unloads into where the center of Joe’s chest had been. Joe’s already shifted, though, and the bullets that tear through his skin don’t kill him instantly. As pain sears through the side of his chest and blood seeps into the fabric of his shirt, he manages to turn his head to look at the man who’d been next to him. The muscles of his chest are already knitting themselves back together, struggling to push the bullets that remain lodged between them back out. The muscles of the chatty motherfucker’s neck, on the other hand, aren’t. The handful of bullets that passed all the way through Joe and the two that missed him entirely have found their places in his clavicle and carotid, and his head lolls forward.

“Ha- _ hah _ !” Nicky whoops. “I didn’t think that would work that well.”

“Shit,” big-gun guy says through gritted teeth, and adjusts his aim. His next shot isn’t so forgiving, hitting Joe square in the heart, and he uses the last of his strength before he dies to fall back into shut-up guy’s corpse.

It only takes a few seconds for Joe to come back -- the benefits of getting offed by a nice, clean shot -- and he stays utterly still for a moment until he can get his hands confidently around shut-up guy’s gun. With his eyes still closed, he hears a loud thud and peeks one eye open to see Nicky kneeling on big-gun guy’s back, his other foot pressing his arm down onto the corrugated floor, trapping his gun underneath him. 

The other four men are scrambling to ready their own weapons, wasting precious seconds reaching and raising them. Joe pushes himself up, bringing the gun with him, and twists his body to unload the clip into the huddle of soldiers. They swerve as the driver in the unseen front carriage realizes there are guns going off towards them. Shooting from such an odd angle, the gun held behind him with his wrists shackled, he misses more than he hits, spraying holes into the wall of the van. Half the shots that hit the men deflect off their body armor, anyway, but he huffs in satisfaction as he gets one in the head, painting the front wall of the van with blood and gray matter. 

He glances at Nicky and whistles, tossing the gun just behind Nicky. As he catches it, Joe steps in front of big-gun guy and drops down, hooking the chain connecting his wrists under the man’s chin and crossing his arms behind him to tighten the chain around his neck. He begins to choke and sputter, and Joe pulls the chain tighter as Nicky stands up and surges towards the three remaining soldiers. 

He hits one in the side with the butt of the gun then shoves his shoulder into his side, knocking two of them together. The third trains his gun on Nicky, and Joe swings a leg out towards him, throwing him off-balance so when he fires, it’s into his fellow soldier’s forehead instead of Nicky’s. He falls back and bangs his head against the wall, sinking down to the seat below him.

Nicky pushes off of that soldier’s body as it falls and shoots at the other one still standing. His first few shots hit his wrist and arm, sending his gun clattering to the ground, and before he can use his good hand to get a knife more than halfway out of its sheath, the ski mask covering his face is torn through by another bullet and the wool begins to seep up his blood before he hits the ground.

Under Joe, the spluttering begins to die down, and he looks down to see the last threads of life snap away from big-gun guy. 

He untangles his chains from the man’s neck and stands up to face Nicky. “Would’ve been nice not to have had to do that,” he says, peering down at the small pile of corpses they’ve created.

“Y- hnngh- you didn’t have to,” the man Joe knocked over sneers, reaching for his dropped gun.

“I think it’s your turn to shut up,” Nicky says, and turns and shoots him in the neck. He turns back to Joe. “Would’ve been nice not to be here, too.” He drops the gun behind him and shrugs. “One of these guys probably has a key to these, don’t you think?” he asks, jingling the manacles on his wrists.

They turn over each of the bodies, opening up tactical-vest pockets and checking for belt loops, anywhere a key might be stowed, but after a thorough search they come up empty-handed.

“You know, Nicky?” Joe asks, sinking down onto one of the benches.

“Hmm?”

“I’m fucking tired of this. After we get through this, I’m taking a break.”

Nicky laughs, plopping himself down directly across from Joe. “A break sounds nice.”

Joe leans his head back against the side of the car, letting it rattle against the metal. He sighs. “Are we going to talk about Booker?”

“What about him?” Nicky asks.

Joe looks at him. “This is his fault. He betrayed us.”

Nicky narrows his eyes. “He  _ what _ ? Back at the safe house, they blew him up. You’re saying he was working with them?”

“I don’t know what exactly he did, and I sure as hell don’t know  _ how _ or  _ why _ he could’ve done it, but how do you think they found that place? They only blew him up about two seconds before they dragged you out of the kitchen--”

“Oh, yeah, they were pretty pissed I got one of them with a kitchen knife. Had onion on it, too, so he was tearing up before I stuck it through his head.”

They both laugh at that, and Joe feels a pang of longing. He truly doesn’t understand how Nicky doesn’t feel the chemistry between them, doesn’t feel that the connection they’ve shared since those first painful deaths at each other’s hands wants to be more than they’ve let it be. He isn’t imagining the way they can communicate without speaking, the way they can move like one being and finish each other’s actions. They’re better at it with each other than with Andy or Booker, even when Joe stunts himself by pretending what they have is enough for him. How is friendship, even close friendship, enough for Nicky?

“Anyway,” Joe says, knowing his pause had started to drag on too long. “Before that, they didn’t touch him, didn’t grab him like they did me. They talked to him. One of them mentioned something about a ‘little agreement’ he had. They wanted him to tell them where Andy was…” He leans his head back again. “He didn’t tell them. Said he didn’t know, so they put something in his lap. Couldn’t see what, exactly, before it blew his head in half. They left him as bait.”

Nicky’s quiet for a long moment. “Fuck,” he says eventually. 

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for another half hour or so as the blood smeared across Joe’s chest and dripping down the walls congeals. The van pulls to a stop and Joe hears chatter outside. He hears a muffled “One, two, three,” and the back doors swing open. One of the corpses tumbles out and in the bright fluorescent lights of what looks to be an airplane hangar, a crowd of more armed and outfitted figures awaits, several dozen guns pointed at the car.

“Son of a  _ bitch _ !” a commander-looking man shouts.

“Don’t suppose you want to get these chains off us?” Nicky asks.

“Get them out, get them  _ out _ , get them onto the fucking plane!” the commander says, practically throwing a tantrum.

“Guess not,” Joe mutters as hands swarm him and Nicky and pull them from the van and march them towards a small plane halfway across the hangar.

“You’d have thought one of those guys would’ve had the keys on them--” Nicky begins to say to no one in particular. “Copley!” he interrupts himself. Joe looks over to see James Copley, older than when they last met, standing away from the main swarm of soldiers. “Can I assume we’re being taken to meet the person who’s paying for your betrayal?”

“I didn’t betray you, Nicky,” Copley says. “If you guys had been honest with me from the start, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Actually, I suspect we’d have been here sooner,” Nicky retorts. “You know, whoever your employer is, he’s going to be disappointed, James. He’s not going to find what he’s looking for.”

“I think you underestimate his commitment. It’ll be easier for you if you don’t fight.”

“Joseph and I have no illusions about what’s going to happen to us,” Nicky sighs. “Even if we wanted to, we won’t be able to help him. But that leaves me with a question for you.” Joe’s pushed up the steps to the plane as Nicky pauses to look directly into Copley’s eyes. “What happens when your employer’s frustration inevitably outmatches his greed?”

Between the two of them, Joe’s always been more of the artist, been more interested in finding the best way to say what he wants to get across. But goddamn, he could listen to Nicky get the last word for an eternity.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in this chapter for a brief mention of animal death. It's a dog dying of old age.

Steve Merrick has a lot of bravado, but Nicky can see right through it to what he really is: a rat of a man. “Annoying” doesn’t begin to describe people like him.

“Copley did all this research. He thinks you two could be five hundred, maybe older,” Merrick says, glaring across a comically long conference table at them. “And that chick you run with? He’s got some shit that maybe means she’s two, three _thousand_ years old!” 

Nicky isn’t really paying attention to Merrick’s little supervillain speech, but he almost laughs at that. Copley thinks he’s such hot shit, thinks he’s broken straight through this conspiracy, yet he can’t even come close to getting their ages right. 

He’s paying more attention to the switchblade Merrick thinks he’s hiding and the guns in his lackeys’ hands. When he swings the blade towards Joe, they spring to action, Nicky twisting around and knocking the gun from the hands of the man hovering behind him. He takes it and pins the man, kneeling on his back. It’s too bad most of the people here weren’t in the van to appreciate the cinematic parallel, Nicky thinks as he points the gun at the other lackeys. He glances over at Joe, who’s got Merrick wrapped around the neck with his chains. Again! Cinematic fucking parallels. If they can use the same tricks over and over on these people, maybe getting out of this will be easier than Nicky expected.

“You were saying something about being ruthless?” Joe asks. “We walk, you live. How’s that appeal to your business sense?”

Nicky swears he can see a glint in Merrick’s eyes of being impressed. Side effects of underestimating them, he supposes. It isn’t enough, though, because a few seconds later he’s getting shot and god _damn it_ , it hurts every time and Merrick’s calling them pincushions and when Nicky tries to protest how excitedly he’s driving his knife into Joe’s gut it’s him who gets stabbed and then he’s dead and it’s really fucking annoying.

Getting experimented on is new. It’s not fun, but honestly isn’t the worst thing Nicky’s ever experienced. Maybe not even top five. From his dabbling in battlefield medicine over the past century, he’s not sure the poking and prodding and testing are much different than a normal doctor’s visit for the twenty-first century. He’s pretty sure a normal doctor wouldn’t be so _excited_ to draw blood and take biopsies and wheel patients into MRIs, or keep their patients securely strapped down to chairs and tables that would look more at home in a military prison than a lab in an office building, but there’s decidedly less mad science going on than Merrick’s introduction would have led Nicky to expect.

Shockingly, they didn’t bother splitting him and Joe up, which means he’s got someone to talk to while the doctor is out running their blood samples under a microscope or whatever.

“You think they’re listening in?” Nicky asks, probably a few hours in.

“Almost certainly.”

“You think they’ll get mad if we don’t talk about all our deepest, darkest secrets for them to hear?”

“Oh, furious. What kind of prisoner doesn’t spill their heart out in a convenient, dramatic way that gives their captors plenty of emotional ammunition to use against them to drag out their torture and make it personal?”

Hah, Nicky thinks. If only he knew. 

“I think this place is getting to me,” Joe says, maybe the better part of a day into their capture.

“How so?”

He breathes in deep, lolling his head back on the table he’s strapped to. “I kind of like the smell.”

It’s strong, chemical, artificially clean. Nicky has a feeling it’s seeping into his skin so deep it’ll take weeks to get rid of once they’re out of here. It should be unpleasant,unbearable.

It reminds him of a dog they found on the street a few years back, lying in some southwest U.S. alley like she knew she was dying and had just accepted it. Joe had scooped her up without a second thought, marched it to a vet. Andy had pretended to be mad about getting off-track from their mission at hand and Booker had pretended to be mad about how much they spent on some random mutt’s emergency surgery, but they took to the dog just as much as Joe in the end. They wouldn’t let her go, took care of her for the next couple years until her old bones gave out. When they took her back from the animal hospital, that dog smelled like this lab does. 

“I think I kind of like it, too,” Nicky says. He wonders if Joe remembers the same thing. He wonders if he's imagining the feeling in the air, the palpable quiet that falls across them, wanting to be broken by all the things he's never said aloud and still barely says to himself. 

The door swings open and the doctor comes back in, flipping through a clipboard laden with papers and pens with the ends chewed off. He mutters to himself in Russian and Nicky glances at Joe and pretends not to understand what he's saying. Some research they did if they think speaking other languages is a good way of hiding things from them. 

“...the bone marrow, potentially? It could be something to do with the hematopoiesis…” He sets the clipboard down and pulls open a drawer, moving aside several instruments before pulling out a scalpel and syringe. He leans his head out into the hallway and calls for guards, and four of Merrick's little army file into the lab. “. Four of Merrick’s little army file in, and Dr. Ivan has them hold Nicky securely in place as he unstraps him from the chair. They take him to the table and shove him face-first onto it, strapping him down until he’s just as stuck in place. “Good. Do the same for the other one,” Dr. Ivan directs.

“Now, this will hurt,” he says to Nicky, as if it’s still funny the twenty-somethingth time, as if it was funny the first time. Just like every previous time he’s said it, he laughs at his own joke, and just like every other time, he’s the only one who does. 

Nicky can’t really see what he’s doing, but he can feel the doctor standing over him, can hear the squeak as he pulls gloves onto his hands and the clatter as he picks something off the metal tray next to the table. He feels his shirt being pulled up his back and the skin at the back of his hip is cut through with the now-familiar blade of a scalpel. He feels a needle being pressed into the incision and a sharp pain in his bone. It fades quickly when the needle is pulled out, but a few moments later he feels it all over again, then a third time, then a fourth that feels a little different, even if he can’t place how. That last needle is pulled out, and his skin knits itself back together, but Dr. Ivan presses a square bandage on it anyway. There are band-aids plastered all over his body over long-healed incisions, and Nicky just wants to tear them all off but his hands are never free. 

“Should we put him back in the chair?” one of the guards asks as Dr. Ivan walks over to the other table where Joe’s strapped down. 

He’s answered with a noncommittal hand wave. “Eh, at some point. Don’t worry about it now,” Dr. Ivan says. He begins what Nicky is pretty sure is the same process on Joe as he just performed on him. He pulls up Joe’s shirt and takes a scalpel to his hip, and Nicky reflexively averts his eyes. God, he’s hopeless. He makes a mental note to get laid as soon as they get out of here and knows he’ll pretend it’s only a coincidence when he picks someone who looks like Joe. After a moment, though, his curiosity outweighs his fluster and he looks back over to watch the doctor stick a thin needle into Joe’s side and pull the stopper on the syringe back, drawing a dark liquid into it. 

Nicky knows he shouldn’t judge, since he did the same thing, but seeing Joe act like the pain is nothing sends a shock through his heart. It wasn’t that painful, he knows it wasn’t, but no matter how long they live or how badly they’ve been hurt, Nicky knows it doesn’t make the little injuries hurt any less. It’s how he knows they’re still alive, still human, and he wouldn’t give it up for anything, but they still fucking hurt. Not that he does deserve this, but Joe really doesn’t.

Dr. Ivan repeats the process a few times, just as he did with Nicky, then sticks a bigger needle in and takes a solid sample. He places each needle on a tray and gives Joe a band-aid, then takes the tray with all their bone marrow out the door. The guards follow, leaving Nicky and Joe alone once again.

“All things considered, that wasn’t so bad,” Joe says. “It was quick. What do they call it? Minimally invasive.”

“Yeah, could do without the stickers, though,” Nicky mutters.

“Hey, it’s been a while since either of us has seen a doctor. It’s probably the most normal part of all of this.”

Nicky rolls his eyes and smiles. He sighs, feeling his chest muscles push against the flat, cold metal of the table. “Andy’s going to come for us, right?” he asks. “I mean, yes, obviously, she is, but… you don’t think Booker will… I don’t know, mislead her?”

“I think he can try as much as he wants, but she’ll find us. Plus, she’s got the new girl on her side, probably. Between the two of them, they’ll figure it out,” Joe says. “But I don’t think he’ll bother. I think he’ll lead her right to us. I think this Merrick guy wants her, too. Wants all of us, probably.”

More guards come in a while later and move them to chairs, which are marginally more comfortable. Nicky falls asleep, even though he’s only guessing at what time of day it is, and when he’s woken up he can only guess at how long he was asleep. Today -- he’s just going to think of it as a new day, it’s easier -- there are all kinds of test results on the monitors in the lab. He doesn’t know how to interpret half of them, doesn’t even know what half of those are talking about, but it’s something new to look at so he looks.

“You know what these mean?” he asks. When he looks over, Joe’s studying them with the same mild interest he is.

“I think that’s good,” Joe replies, nodding towards one of the screens. With his neck restrained, it’s hard to tell which note he’s referring to, hard to even tell which monitor he’s looking at, but Nicky follows his gaze to something about blood cell count. “Almost six… million? That seems like a big, healthy number.”

“Your confidence really sells it.”

“Hey, you’re the one who’s been a medic anytime in the past fifty years. Why don’t you tell me what it means?”

Nicky wracks his brain for any relevant knowledge. Sure, he plays medic, but this is all a lot less… traumatic injury-oriented than what he’s used to on battlefields. “Well, the white blood cell stuff looks good. I think it’s safe to say we don’t have any terrible infections.” The results for each of them don’t seem to be marked or separated in any visible way, and he’s not sure if all these numbers and notes are for one of them or some combination.

The door creaks open and Dr. Ivan stands in the doorway, flanked by a handful of guards. “It all looks good. It all looks… fine.” He enters the lab. “I’m not sure what I’m missing.” The guards file in and begin to move them around at the doctor’s direction. “Tell me, do _you_ know what it is that makes you tick? That keeps your heart beating after centuries?”

Nicky manages a shrug through his restraints. “Destiny, I suppose. We’ve yet to see the time we’re meant to die, so for now, we live.”

“And what you do?” Dr. Ivan asks. “Do you think that is living?”

He looks over to Joe, not fighting against the hands of the men that drag him to the exam table, but his eyes still examining them, finding their weaknesses and details they’ve overlooked. He thinks of the songs Joe sings when he thinks no one is listening. He thinks of Booker and the pain and shock of realizing he betrayed them. He thinks of Andy, so tired after a veritable eternity of life, and he thinks of her smile and her good days. He thinks of all the little moments, the in-betweens, when they have all been together and doing nothing in particular, when they have felt more like a family than many people will ever know.

He looks at the guards and thinks of Merrick, stalking around his glass conference room high above a beautiful city, thinking himself invincible and justified in everything he does.

“I think what I do is far closer to living than what you do.”

The second day of tests is much the same as the first, but faster -- Nicky feels like he’s being moved around every ten minutes, and the guards don’t leave. Dr. Ivan pops in and out, sticking needles into them. He’s getting frustrated, or starting to panic. Nicky’s not sure there’s a difference. Every few trips in, his jabs get faster, less calculated. He has to stick Nicky in the thigh four times before he gets a vein, and there’s no delight on his face as he does it.

“How’s it going?” Joe asks the next time he comes in. In the doctor’s tight-lipped expression, Nicky swears he sees a flash of desperation before it turns to seething fury.

“Why isn’t there anything _wrong_ with you?” he snaps.

“So, not going so well?” Joe says. “I’ll save you the time. Nothing’s going to change. It’s like Nicky said. We’re still alive because we are still meant to be. When that stops being true, we’ll die just as sure as you will.”

Dr. Ivan turns and walks out of the lab without another word. When he returns a few minutes later, he rolls a screen with several multicolored lines on it and begins to attach monitors to Joe’s fingers and the lines begin to waver, displaying his heartbeat, his breathing, his blood oxygen. 

“You seem confident your ‘time’ hasn’t come yet,” Dr. Ivan says. He clicks the end of a pen and looks down at his clipboard. He looks up, pulls a pistol from his waistband, and fires. Joe goes limp the moment the bullet passes through his forehead, and the monitor lets out a long beep as the heartbeat it measures stops.

Nicky’s breath hitches, frozen in his throat as Joe dies. Just like every time, the possibility floats through his head. _What if this is it? What if this is the one?_ And then the beeping resumes its steady rhythm, and the hole in Joe’s head knits itself back together with a slight squelch and he draws a deep, exasperated breath. Dr. Ivan writes something down and shoots him again.

“What are you getting out of this?” Nicky snaps at him.

Dr. Ivan glances at him before turning his eyes back to the monitor. “Knowledge,” he answers. “Knowledge… and catharsis.”

“I’ll show you catharsis,” Nicky mutters in Italian as Joe wakes back up, only to be shot again.

This is the most grueling part of being test subjects so far: watching Joe die, over and over. Nicky is beginning to change his mind on the judgement that it isn’t so bad. 

Dr. Ivan kills Joe sixteen times. Nicky holds his breath through every one, but none of them take. When he’s done, the doctor storms out of the lab again.

Part of Nicky expects he will get a break after that, but before long, the less-fatal tests resume. He is fairly certain they’re being triple-checked by now, the same samples being taken over and over again. His words to Copley come back to mind: What happens when the doctor’s, or Merrick’s, frustration outmatch their greed? He has a feeling that inevitability is coming much sooner than he would have thought. How they ever got anywhere with such an utter lack of patience, Nicky does not know.

After another few hours and dozen tests, maybe, the guards leave with Dr. Ivan and do not return. “I think it’s their bedtime,” Joe says when they are out of earshot.

“Has it really been a whole day?” Nicky asks.

“I can’t tell for sure, but it seems so. Feels like it’s been a day, at least. All that dying took a lot of energy.”

They haven’t gotten any food or water in the time they’ve been here. It’s part of the tests, probably, seeing if they’ll die of starvation.

“Sorry you had to do that,” Nicky says.

“Ah, it’s fine. More annoying than anything else, at least.”

“You know, you don’t have to downplay all this. Just because we get better doesn’t mean it isn’t a shitty situation to be in.”

“I know.”

Joe falls asleep easily, but Nicky sits awake for most of the night. He dwells on Andy, wonders where she is. The possibility that she was captured, too, and just hasn’t been brought to the same place floats through his head. Somehow, he knows that isn’t the case.

He watches Joe’s chest rise and fall in a perfect, even rhythm. His heart aches to be so close, yet so guarded. The steady beeping of the heart monitor echoes in his mind. The long, harsh tone when it was disrupted. He and Joe, they’re the rhythm. He can’t let his feelings be the bullet that breaks that beat, that changes things between them irreparably.

His problem is that Joe’s too nice. Too kind. Because if Nicky were to say something, no matter how Joe feels, it would change things between them. And no matter how Joe feels, he would try not to let it change things. He would act like it didn’t change things, but it would, and Nicky would lose him.

His thoughts drift to Malta, 1992. That almost broke them. He can’t do that again.

He falls asleep.

Nicky awakes with a crick in his neck. He tries to roll it out, but it isn’t much use. Joe stirs around the same time. Nicky sighs. “Any idea what’s taking her so long?”

“No.”

The doors to the lab slam open, jolting Nicky the rest of the way awake. 

“Am I gonna have to stab you guys over and over again?” Merrick asks, marching in towards them. Dr. Ivan hovers behind him like a child embarrassed by their parent’s outburst.

“Think we’d rather if you didn’t,” Nicky answers.

“I will have you both cut into pieces to find this, you get me? I will make you two into slurries and run you through a sieve to get this.” Merrick’s anger is a little satisfying, Nicky has to admit.

“Why?” he asks.

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘why’?” Merrick asks. “You’re immortal, that’s why!”

“But we’re not.”

“Yes, you goddamn are!”

Joe sighs. “Don’t bother, Nicky. He doesn’t want to hear it.”

“We’re not,” Nicky insists. He stares Merrick dead in the eyes. “Our time just hasn’t come, yet.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Everyone dies, Mr. Merrick. We just haven’t yet, that’s all.”

Merrick closes his eyes and presses his lips together, but before he can reply, one of his enforcers appears in the doorway. “Mr. Merrick…” he says, drawing out hesitant words. “We have a problem…”

Merrick gives him a last dirty look and leaves the room. Dr. Ivan stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, then sits at the desk chair. He types away at one of the monitors, shoulders visibly tense. Nicky and Joe share a look.

Distantly, they hear gunfire. It subsides, then picks up again, closer this time. There’s a louder bang and Dr. Ivan looks up, startled. 

“Huh,” Nicky says.

“About time,” Joe adds.

The doctor peeks his head out the door, and Nicky can hear him talking to one of the guards.

“What’s happened?”

“She’s fucking in the building, that’s what’s happened!” comes the muffled reply. “Get back in there, lock the door, and don’t let anyone in until I tell you it’s clear!”

Dr. Ivan pushes the door shut and leans back, resting against it.

“I think the doctor has a decision to make,” Nicky says.

“I think he’s already made his decision,” Joe replies.

“Just out of idle curiosity… do you think she’ll make it quick for him when she gets here?”

Joe matches his tone, full of sarcasm with just enough bite to sound genuine. “You mean if Andy finds us here, like this?” He scoffs. “Not a chance. He’ll be dying for days.”

“Unless.”

“Unless he tries to make right.”

Dr. Ivan’s eyes go wide. “You will tell her, yes?” he asks, shuffling over to Joe and releasing the restraints on him. “That… that I did this? That I freed you, both of you? That I helped you?” Joe rubs his wrists as the doctor unstraps Nicky. Free of their restraints, they stand up and step towards him in unison.

“Yeah, but that’s not really what you’ve done, is it?” Nicky asks. “You’re really only looking to help yourself. You hurt me. You hurt…” He hesitates. “You hurt my best friend, the most important person I’ve known in a millennium. I also think there’s something wrong with your head or your heart, because I think you were a little to eager to do it and justify it as science.”

“No, no, listen, I--” the doctor protests, but Joe’s hands are already on his head. He snaps his neck and drops his body to the ground. It _is_ a quicker, more merciful death than they’d promised Andy would subject him to.

They stand over his body for a moment until the door swings open and a familiar, welcome voice echoes in from the hallway.

“Well, shit,” Andy says, “if I’d known you were gonna get out on your own, I could’ve fucking stayed in Paris.”

“We got tired of waiting for you, boss,” Joe says as she begins tossing guns to them.

“Who’s this?” Nicky asks, looking to the new girl, the young woman they’d seen flashes of in their dreams.

“Nile,” she says. “Nile Freeman.”

Nicky inspects the rifle he’s been given and slings it over his shoulder. “Nicolò of Genoa,” he introduces himself, “but you can call me Nicky.”

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani, called al-Tayyib,” Joe says. Nile raises an eyebrow at him. “Joe.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nicky can see Booker move to the door and look into the hallway. “Guys,” he says. 

“Boss--” Joe begins.

“Yeah, we know,” Andy cuts him off. “That’s for later.” She cocks her gun. “Right now, we go to work.”


	4. Chapter 4

They have Nile pick where they go next. Even Andy agrees to settling down for a little while, getting some rest. There is a palpable hole where Booker is missing, tilting the whole group’s movements. Joe’s still pissed at him and would be more than happy to let Nile replace him outright, but even in his anger he knows that feeling will eventually fade, and it’ll be better for her to carve her own niche with them than to try and fill someone else’s.

In the end, she can’t pick one place she wants to go, so she finds a world atlas and opens it in the middle and points. “Fuck it, we’re going here.” When they lean over her shoulder, it’s Tallinn. “I’m not even sure where this is,” she admits.

“Estonia,” Joe says. “Interesting choice.” He half-expects her to change her mind and pick somewhere more touristy, but she just puts the book away, picks up her bag, and asks when they’re leaving.

They don’t have a safe house in Tallinn, so they make one. They buy a house with a big yard that backs up to Lake Harku and fill it with the haphazard assortment of items they leave in the places they call homes. Within a week, there are shelves in every room covered in books written in countless languages and centuries, a sparring gym that’s really more of an armory, an antique kitchen table Andy had in a house in Russia eighty years ago. Nicky makes them sit down for “family dinners” they make fun of him for but wouldn’t skip for the world.

“Hey, Joe, Nile was going to study art history after she got out of the military,” Andy says on one of their first nights in Tallinn. They’re playing Phase 10 over homemade ice cream and talking about what they’re going to do with their downtime. 

“Were you?” Joe says, drawing yet another 6. “Wonder if you’d have learned about anything I made.”

Nile takes the 6 he discards and puts down her two sets of four. “I was. Took a couple classes in high school, too. Have you made anything famous?”

Joe laughs. “Only by accident. I try to keep a low profile, but I think one or two of my drawings have ended up in museums. I think there are some art museums in town, though, maybe we should go.” He jabs a finger at Andy and Nicky. “These uncultured losers have told me to shut up about art enough times. It’ll be nice to have someone around who can appreciate my passions instead of degrading me for them.”

“Hey, I like your art!” Nicky says. Joe studies his cards intently, hoping he isn’t blushing. 

“And I can appreciate it,” Andy says. “Remember that one time we paid someone in your old paintings? That was useful.”

“You see what I mean?” he asks Nile. “Completely hopeless.”

Going to museums quickly becomes their thing. They find an interesting one at least once a week and stand out among the mostly lily-white population of Tallinn, always assumed to be tourists, and they brush up on Estonian and Russian as quickly as they can so they can startle anyone who stares too long with their fluency.

Nile likes reading the plaques and asking Joe about the history they mention, and Joe likes making up wildly inaccurate stories about anything he wasn’t there to see and waiting for Nile to realize he’s bullshitting it. She gets good at it quickly -- so quickly, Joe doesn’t realize right away she starts bullshitting him back, asking wide-eyed questions about key battles in the wars he fabricates whole-cloth and claiming to remember fake historical figures from high school history classes. 

They talk about real history, too, and real art. Nile knows more about the painters and movements on display here, because most of the art Joe has taken the time to learn about comes from regions other than northeast Europe. They talk about other things, too, anything that crosses their minds. Nile likes to people-watch, make up stories about all the other visitors and what they’re doing. She is refreshingly open, treating her short, busy life as an open book and sharing any and every memory with Joe. Compared to Andy’s curt demeanor or Booker’s grumpy sadness at being asked to think about his own past or Noriko’s slow and sporadic way of sharing details of her life, or Nicky’s history so intertwined with his own they have no need to talk about it, it’s a nice change to learn about someone through earnest conversation. In return, he treats her as a confidant -- not that he’s ever been closed off around the others, but when he talks to her it is different. It is new, a fresh dynamic, and so he voices things that usually go unspoken.

They talk often about Joe’s own art, about the different places and times he has influenced and been influenced by. Nile pries it out of him that, as much as he enjoys drawing, it is writing that he is most confident with. She begs and begs to hear some of his old poetry, and he composes half-poems on the spot for her about anything that sparks his imagination enough to bring beautiful words to mind, but lies at first and tells her he cannot remember anything he has written before well enough to recite it.

He remembers some of his poems, and some of his other writing, as well, perfectly. He could pull out a selection from any of the centuries he’s seen. But he doesn’t want to admit to her that anything halfway decent he’s ever composed is about Nicky.

Nile wins out, in the end, mostly because he accepts that she knows how he feels about Nicky. She makes it clear that he is not subtle, asking him leading questions even after they clarify, flustered, at dinner one early night that they don’t go to sleep in the same bed because their relationship is not like that-- they’re just friends, supernaturally close friends, but friends-- but Joe’s heart pounds at the implication for hours afterwards, prays he was able to hide his reaction from Nicky if not from Nile’s perceptive eyes.

When he does finally give her something he’s written, it’s on paper, scribbled down and left folded on her bed while she and Andy are out throwing axes. She knocks on his door that evening, and when she comes in she is holding the poem and practically weeping.

“You weren’t lying when you said you were a good artist,” she laughs. She holds the paper out to him. “But I can tell it’s supposed to be spoken. Just ignore how much I’m gonna cry and read it to me.”

Joe smiles and pushes the page back to her. “Keep the transcript. I don’t need it.” He makes sure the door is closed, makes sure Nicky will not hear him through the walls -- the poem doesn’t mention him by name, but there is no one else it could possibly be about. Then he recites it word for word.

Nile does cry, though there’s a smile on her face the whole time. “You know,” Joe says, “It’s better in the original Arabic.”

Nile wipes her face. “Guess I know what’s next on my list for languages, then.”

He gives her other writing from time to time, and she stops crying every time she reads it and begins giving him concise, brilliant criticism. He thinks she might have started writing poetry, too, and he doesn’t press about it. She starts leaving him notes with lines or couplets here and there, asking for feedback, and he jots down his thoughts and returns them.

When they share their art, Nile doesn’t tease him about the sickeningly saccharine longing that fills his to the brim. If he’s being honest, it’s a decent chunk of the reason he keeps showing her.

They’ve been in the Kumu Art Museum for an hour or so when it occurs to Joe that Nile’s been quieter than usual today. They have been in Tallinn for almost four months. It’s the longest they’ve stayed anywhere in a long time, but the months themselves are like minutes passing by in front of the backdrop of the length of their lives.

“You alright?” he asks, looking across a pedestal on which a sculpture of an owl sits to meet her eyes.

“Yeah, just thinking.” She stares at the sculpture, tracing the curves with her eyes. “I got a question for you,” she says after a long pause. “How’d you and Nicky meet?”

“Like we’ve told you, we found each other in the Crusades. Killed each other until we were sure it wouldn’t take and then we teamed up. Found Andy eventually.”

“Yeah, but I want the long version. The juicy details.”

Joe laughs. “I don’t know that I’d call it a juicy story.”

“Uh, I was the reporter out of the two of us. I decide what’s juicy.” She smiles. “Just talk about it. I won’t even know if you embellish.”

“No, no, I won’t embellish it. It wouldn’t do it justice. I… the things you remember, the things you forget, once enough time goes by… it’s not always what you expect. But you remember your first death. Even Andy does, and hers was a  _ long _ time ago. I remember meeting Nicolò perfectly. I think because we killed each other, all the other memories around that moment are sharper, too.”

It was a battlefield. Chaotic. The summer sun shone bright, making every piece of metal glint like it had been touched by a god. Each side claimed that was exactly what had happened, that they were blessed and destined for victory.

In a way, Joe thinks they were right. For that single clash, there  _ was  _ destiny at play; the Crusades as a whole, beyond living on for centuries as justification for violence and hatred against his people, were a waste of lives and time and money. But that battle did mean something. He can’t believe it didn’t. As much as he wishes he had, he didn’t feel some divine pull towards Nicolò before their swords met. When they first saw each other, they weren’t special. Not yet. They were just enemies who were within arm’s reach who weren’t busy slaughtering each other’s brothers in arms in that second, and so they went to each other. No, the divine pull came after.

He remembers the noise, remembers the smug feeling below the adrenaline when he recognized, in rough terms, the languages being shouted from the mouths of the Christians. He remembers how every dying word and one-sided conversation were omnipresent yet unnoticeable, the way they all faded into the background even if he bothered to try eavesdropping. He remembers the way Nicolò’s hair, so much longer back then, fell around his face as he heaved his sword from its sheath. He remembers the metallic  _ shing  _ of drawing his own blade and the vibration that shot through his arm when their swords collided. He remembers that he drew the first blood, and he remembers in the moment his blade entered Nicolò’s stomach that he whispered an apology for his cruelty before disemboweling him. He remembers the weight of Nicolò’s body as it sank, and remembers the feeling of a longsword through his heart just before Nicolò hit the ground.

He remembers the moment he knew he would die there, and remembers that was the moment he knew Nicolò wasn’t just another faceless soldier. He remembers the darkness of death and how bright the dead of night seemed in comparison when he awoke to see one other body moving amongst the abandoned corpses. He remembers knowing, instantly, who it was and he remembers thinking he would find his companions just as soon as he killed this man  _ right _ .

He remembers killing Nicolò, and dying by his hand, many more times before the night was over. He remembers that when morning rose they spoke for the first time, but they did not stop trying to kill each other. He remembers that they shared a morbid curiosity for the mechanics of it, and that they began to take turns, always making sure the other was good and dead before sitting aside and waiting for that to no longer be true.

He remembers the first time he saw someone else kill Nicolò. He remembers that it was how he knew their immortality was not based on dying at each other’s hands, how he knew keeping up the effort of fighting and killing each other endlessly was useless. He remembers reaching out to help him up as his skin smoothed over.

Most of all, he remembers the feeling of Nicolò’s hand in his, and the overwhelming realization that he could not, would not, ever abandon him and that if Nicolò ever left him it would kill him.

It has been a long time since he regaled this to anyone but himself. He doesn’t mean to say it all in one breath, he just  _ does  _ it. The words spill from his lips like a waterfall after a monsoon until he’s done and gasping for a steady breath.

He looks up at Nile. Her cheeks are stained with the drying lines of tears, the corners of her mouth upturned in a faint smile. “The way you talk about him’s the way my mom talks about my dad,” she tells him. “Only difference is you’re not talking about somebody who’s dead.”

Joe sighs. “No, the only difference is I’m not talking about somebody who loves me back. Not the same way, at least.”

Nile gives him a look that, even in the short time he’s known her, he’s come to recognize as a signature of hers. “I know for a  _ fact  _ you’re not that stupid,” she says.

“What do you mean, ‘that stupid’?” Joe crosses his arms.

“That stupid that you actually think Nicky’s not head over fucking heels for you? You have a thousand years under your belt.  _ Don’t _ tell me you don’t see how he looks at you.”

“You think I don’t want him to return my feelings?” he scoffs. “I do see how he looks at me, and it’s not something anyone who’s limited to a couple decades could muster or even understand, but no matter how much I want it to be, it isn’t romantic.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to snap at you. But I’ve been living with this delicate balance for a long time, and I’ve seen what happens when I try and tilt it. Trust me, it’s worse than having to watch me stare longingly at Nicky when he’s not looking.”

“Tilt the balance?”

“Do you want to listen to me because you’re having a bad day, or because you just wanted to hear gossip?” he asks. He does not want to think about that, not right now.

Nile’s face falls, and she looks almost on the brink of tears, then it’s her turn to snap at him. “It’s my parents’ anniversary, alright? Ever since my dad died, it’s been a tough day for my mom, and this year I’m not there to hear her talk about him or try and make her feel better. And I thought listening to someone else talk about someone they love would fill that space for me. But I’m starting to think you’re not actually in love with Nicky. Maybe you’re just in love with the idea of the chase.” She holds his gaze a moment longer, her nostrils flared in disappointed anger, and she walks out of the gallery.

Joe remains in stunned silence for long enough he knows he won’t find Nile if he follows her. He hates that he knows she is right. She’s wrong, but she’s also right -- he  _ is _ in love with Nicky, he knows that more certainly than any other truth. He does not act on it because he is alone in his devotion, because he remembers what happened when he tried to act on it before.

But he also depends on the empty space in his heart where Nicky belongs. He has never written anything that was not tinged with that all-consuming longing, has never drawn or painted or sculpted anything that was not shaped in some small way by his yearning. He brims with a millennium of passion, and it is all fueled by sadness, by absence.

He tells himself that if he could be certain his advances would be welcome, he would make them, but he no longer knows. He looks down. The owl before him, that had appeared so pleasant before, is no longer a delightful exploration of form. Its ceramic face now glares at him in disappointment. He cannot bear to look at it any longer, so he leaves. He looks for Nile as he makes his way through the museum, but when he does not see her he goes home and prays he will not have to face Nicky when he arrives.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in this chapter for mentions of vomiting. It's not described in any great detail, but it does occur.

After half a year in Tallinn, Andy’s getting itchy feet. Nicky doesn’t want to admit it, but he is, too. He likes the rest, but he also likes traveling, and part of him is still hesitant to stay in one place so long lest another ill-meaning billionaire get wind of their existence. 

She comes to family dinner one clear, cool evening with a job. “Copley got in touch. He’s still on probation in my book, of course, but--” she cracks her neck. “I could use some excitement. Even if it’s low-stakes. I don’t know how you guys talked me into being all domestic for this long.”

Nicky has never seen Andy so well-rested. He knows she isn’t really upset to have settled down, knows she’s mentally refreshed, too, and that even without being captured herself, she needed it just as much as he and Joe did. Maybe even more.

“I'm thinking maybe I take Nile. She hasn’t done a normal job with us yet, so it could be a good way of getting into it. If either of you want to come, you’re more than welcome,” she says.

“You got any details?” Nicky asks.

Andy pulls out a phone, spends a little too long pulling the information up, and hands it over. “Kind of a spy gig. There’s a historic park in Alexandria that’s getting fucked over by a pipeline project. We’d go find a reason the pipeline can’t actually build through it,” she explains as Nicky reads over it. It’s a fine job, pretty well-suited to what they usually do, but Nicky doesn’t feel any particular drive to help out. Andy’s right. From the briefing, it looks low-stakes. They probably won’t get killed or badly injured, so there aren’t many opportunities for their secret to be captured, and the shaky legality of the project is an open secret. Nicky’s glad it’s getting done, but Andy could probably do it alone in her sleep.

“I think a girls’ trip is a good idea,” Joe says, looking up from reading over Nicky’s shoulder. “This looks suited to a small group. Not that four is an army, but...” They all chuckle, thinking on all the times they  _ have _ called themselves an army, and fought with the strength of one.

“How about you, Nile?” Nicky asks, passing her the phone. She scrolls through the information, nodding occasionally.

“Looks fine. I’ve always wanted to see Egypt.” She hands Andy the phone back. “I haven't really learned what all to expect yet, but my world doesn’t move as fast as all of yours’ yet. I’m with Andy, I could use some excitement.”

Andy and Nile get ready to leave tomorrow afternoon, leaving Joe and Nicky to clean up the house while they find a job of their own. After dinner, Nile waves Nicky out to the yard with her. When he follows, she’s dragging the canoe they wound up with towards Lake Harku. As he’s done many times over the past few months, he takes the other side and helps carry it down to the shore where tiny waves ripple onto the land. 

She steps in and takes the paddle, and Nicky pushes it the last couple meters into the water, swinging his legs over the side to join her as she rows out into the lake. The setting sun casts golden light over the water, calm and deserted this time of day. 

Much as Andy and Nile have bonded by sharing fighting techniques, weapons knowledge, and new languages and Joe and Nile have bonded over history, art, and culture, Nicky and Nile have bonded over nature, foraging, and food. The first time they went out on the lake, it was so Nicky could give her pointers for scouting and sniping. He showed her how to look  _ into _ the water versus  _ at _ the water, and they watched tiny fish dart back and forth under the dark ripples. They’ve hiked into woods and picked chanterelles and tended to a small garden and exchanged recipes.

Nile is quiet as she rows out into the middle of the lake, the only noises that of the paddle swishing through the water and the constant him of insects that grows quiet the further they get from shore. As she begins to slow down, Nicky breaks the silence. “So, what have you dragged me out here for? Planning to throw me overboard?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she laughs. “Nah, I want to tell you something you don’t want to hear. And to say bye. I’m not  _ that _ mean.”

Nicky pretends like he doesn't know exactly what she’s going to say to him, like she’s ever going to let it go until she gets an answer she’s happy with.

“Ah, so you’re just going to make me throw myself overboard and swim back to the house?”

Nile gives him an exasperated look. “Come on, man. You’ve never given me a reason you insist on making yourself miserable.”

“I’m not miserable,” he protests.

“Yeah, you are.”

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to be miserable?”

“Yeah, you are,” she insists. “You act like you’re doomed to be alone for all eternity just because you can’t talk to one guy.”

“I’m  _ not  _ miserable.” He’s not! He is plenty happy, he  _ has  _ fun, he does things that matter. He won’t say he wants for nothing, but overall he is  _ fine _ . “It’s better like this, anyway.”

“It is never better to keep your emotions all bottled up,” Nile says.

“I’m not keeping them bottled up,” he replies. “I’ve told you,  _ out loud _ , multiple times that I am in love with Joe. Is that what you want me to say?” He turns his face to the sky and shouts into the empty night. “I’m in love with Yusuf al-Kaysani! I have been for all my life that matters!” As he says it, he knows it’s true, but a moment later the doubt creeps back. The line between  _ love  _ and  _ in love _ is already fine, and time only blurs it… After this long, for all he knows, it could be impossible to tell the difference. When he turns back to Nile, she’s fighting back laughter.

“God, you really are Catholic,” she says. “You are even more repressed than I thought if you think telling  _ me _ you’re in love counts as ‘not bottling it up.’”

“I can’t tell him. I don’t want to, because it would make things weird between us, but even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to.”

“Not with that attitude, you wouldn’t.” Nile loves to say that -- “Not with that attitude.” Nicky prefers to hear it when she’s encouraging a child not to give up on a hard puzzle or a nervous adult stressing about an upcoming interview. Not when she’s trying, as good as her intentions are, to totally usurp the careful balance Nicky’s crafted for himself.

“Well, it’s the attitude I’ve got,” he says.

Nile sighs. “Look, I can’t bother you about this while Andy and I are in Egypt. I mean, I  _ could _ , I just won’t. But we all want to be a family. That means you have to deal with the consequences of me caring about you.” She leans forward and rests a hand on top of his. “Can you just tell me  _ why  _ you’re so afraid to try?”

She’s asked for a reason so many times before, and every time he’s dodged the question or changed the subject or just said no. He knows she’s not leaving for long, that she’ll go right back to badgering him whenever they all regroup again, because he’s certainly not going to change course on a dime just because Nile thinks he’ll be better off for it when he knows he won’t. But he still feels like maybe, even if he doesn’t feel like thinking about the times he learned he has to keep himself at a distance, Nile deserves to hear a straight answer from him.

“This… loneliness,” he says finally, “is the devil I know. Joe is my best friend, I’m not settling for that. I’m settling for him  _ just _ being my best friend and not  _ also _ more, but the friendship, that’s real and I would be nowhere without it. And, fine, maybe I’m a little bit miserable that I have to keep this, this pining in the back of my head all the time, but it’s the only thing keeping me less afraid of what happens if I get to have him how I want and then lose it.  _ That  _ would kill me. Over and over and over. If we lost him the way we lost Noriko or the way Andy lost Lykon. But more likely, if we were happy for a while and then weren’t anymore. 

“I’ve loved him for a thousand years, Nile. When it comes to him, I  _ need _ forever. I’m terrified of him falling out of love with me and I’m even more terrified of falling out of love with him, even though part of me knows I never will. So it’s better if I don’t risk it. If I just never know how it would feel to get rid of this feeling of being unrequited, then I don’t have to think about what would happen if I had to go back to it after I had a taste.”

“You really think that would be better?” Nile asks. 

He takes a moment before he answers. “It could have been,” he says. “I could have been happy with it.” He has to believe that, has to believe it’s his own fault it hurts so much to think about this for too long, has to believe there is a world in which he is actually, truly, content to admire Joe from arm’s length.

“It could have been, except…”

“Except I already do know. Sort of. Not really, but… enough.”

“You know you have to tell me what you mean by that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He hasn’t thought of these things -- hasn’t allowed himself to -- ever, relegating them permanently to tightly-shut rooms in the back of his mind where they can wither and he can forget them… and he doesn’t forget, and sometimes they bang at the doors and he has to do anything else just to keep them from stepping back into the light. For the first time in a millennium, he lets his mind and his mouth wander back to 1070.

Nicolò di Genoa is sleeping in a barn. It is not the first time he has done this; it will not be the last. This time, he was invited; some other times, he has not been. There is a man sleeping elsewhere among the hay who cannot die; neither can he. It is not the first time he dreams of the two women, strong and cunning and increasingly familiar despite never having seen them outside of the realm of sleep. He wakes unusually well-rested and unusually comfortable. The hay surrounding him is warm and enveloping.

Except it isn’t the hay, it’s a  _ person _ , it’s an arm slung across his torso and a head resting on his chest, heavy against his body, and panic and instinct honed by more war than he ever cared to be a part of take over and there’s a dagger in this person’s throat before he realizes. This is not a stranger. It is Yusuf, the man he’s barely been on good terms with -- not-killing-each-other terms -- for a week. Now, he supposes, he has to reset that counter. God damn it. The hay grows red with blood and the shirt he  _ just _ cleaned in a river soaks up the life he just took from Yusuf. God  _ damn _ it.

He drops the dagger to the dusty ground below and waits for Yusuf to come back to life. When he does, several minutes later, it is with a groan. He begins to say something in the Arabic Nicolò can’t quite get a grip on yet, presses his eyes closed, then opens them and repeats himself in Genoese.

“Did you just  _ stab _ me?”

“I am so sorry, Yusuf, I woke up and felt a weight on top of me. I panicked. I had already done it when I realized it was you. If it’s any consolation, I didn’t  _ mean _ to kill  _ you _ .”

Yusuf brings a hand to his neck, traces the almost-faded scar along the side of it. “You’re finding us food today,” he says with an annoyed look. “You’re lucky I’m resilient and not keen on spending an eternity alone.”

“I think that’s more than fair,” Nicolò says. He pushes himself up from the hay and brushes as much as he can from his clothes. He sets out in search of breakfast, hoping he remembers the Muslim rules of food, and tries to shake the feeling that he could get used to Yusuf sleeping that close.

“I apologized for what felt like months for that,” Nicky tells Nile. “That was long before I let myself accept that I could have romantic feelings for men as well as sexual ones, and murdering someone is sort of a turn-off for me, so, you know, I didn’t put two and two together at the time.”

“Okay, now I  _ almost _ understand why Joe’s so insistent you don’t have feelings for him,” Nile says. “I mean, you do see how accidentally cuddling someone and getting stabbed for it might send the message that more intentional things wouldn’t be received well, right?”

Nicky doesn’t believe Joe talks to Nile about him. Joe has always worn his heart on his sleeve, poured every ounce of himself into the words he says and the words he writes and the way he moves. If he does indeed share Nicky’s pining, then he keeps it deeper than anything else, probably so deep he’s in more denial than Nicky. It is unconscionable to Nicky that Joe would be able to share something like that and not broadcast it to the whole world. But he doesn’t feel like calling her on that right now.

“Yes, I know, it was fully my fault,” he says, letting himself smile. There is still one more door in his mind. He wonders if he could get away with leaving it closed, wonders if Nile can tell there is more he could say.

“Still, that was right when you guys met,” she says. “I still think both of you are idiots for not saying anything at  _ any point _ since then.” Ah. He supposes he doesn’t have to wonder long.

“Well, no, there was one other time,” he admits, and takes in a deep breath. This is a memory he has hidden much more forcefully. It is fresher and more painful and it is a gash he fears will never close. He does not have to work to bring it up; it has been looming at every edge of his thoughts, creeping ever closer to overtaking him since this conversation began. 

It is Malta, 1992. The island is a favorite of all four members of their team. They are there on a job together, and they are simultaneously alert and relaxed. They have decided not to be concerned with big things right now, but they have not stopped looking out for any small situation where they could help out some ordinary person who, in time, might be someone important. The job they came for is Booker’s job, really. It involves a lot of computers, which Andy is hopeless with and neither Joe nor Nicky have yet taken the time to get more than barely competent with. Booker likes them, though, so he holes up and types away for hours while the rest of them enjoy the sun and the breeze and return lost cats and other little helpful things that remind them of the better side of humanity.

One afternoon, while walking back towards the villa where they’re staying, Nicky sees a young man biking down the side of the street past them when something on his bicycle catches and sends him crashing unceremoniously to the ground. He appears to be spared from any serious injuries, only startled. The three of them begin to head towards him to help him up when Nicky notices that the car heading towards them seems to be going worryingly fast and isn’t slowing down. He can tell Joe sees it, too, because they shift into autopilot at the same time, moving like a well-oiled machine -- certainly better-oiled than the man’s bike -- as they lunge forward and scoop him up by the armpits and pull him back to the sidewalk half a second before the car whizzes past. Andy picks up his bike as Joe and Nicky set the man back on his feet and he gasps as his mind catches up.

“Holy shit,” he says, breathless. He looks between Joe and Nicky, and to Andy a moment later when she appears behind them. 

“You might want to invest in a bicycle that isn’t trying to kill you,” she suggests.

For lack of anything else to do, he laughs. “That might be a good idea.” He runs a hand through dark hair and glances to the street. “Thank you,” he says. “You saved my life. My fiancée would be beyond furious if I died two days before the wedding.”

“It’s no trouble,” Joe says. “I’m just glad we were fortunate enough to be close enough to help.” 

“Nonsense,” the man says. “Let me do something to thank you… oh, what the hell? Why don’t I just extend an invitation to the wedding for all of you? I suppose I should say-- my name is Alfonsu. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too. You don’t have to invite us to your wedding,” Andy tells him.

“No, no, I want to. You don’t have to come if that’s too strange, but you would be more than welcome.” He fishes around in his pockets and finds a pen and scrap of paper and writes up a makeshift invitation and gives it to them. “Consider it,” he says, and bids them farewell.

“That was a  _ little _ weird, right?” Nicky asks as they resume their walk back to the villa.

“Oh, definitely. Even if they save you, inviting total strangers to your wedding is definitely unusual,” Joe replies. “I think I’ll go, though. It could be fun.”

As it turns out, it is a little too much fun. It is an enormous ceremony on a beach, and the fact that they know nobody there doesn’t turn out to be an issue. It seems half the people there are strangers. Andy, who decided she would tag along after all, finds them not an hour into the reception and tells them she’ll be spending the night with a woman she meets there. Though there is no discernible reason, most of the music played over the large black speakers is French, and evidently some is very old because Booker recognizes it and disappears into the milling crowd of guests to dance. Joe and Nicky find some kind of sickeningly sweet yet strangely delicious juice, heavily flavored with the figs and honey native to the island.

Nicky is on his third cup of it when the other flavor dawns on him, and when he looks over to Joe to warn him, he is practically spinning on his feet.

“Hey, uhh… hey Joe?” he calls out. “I think this is actually not a nice fruit drink and is actually very strong liquor.”

Joe grips his arm with an uncomfortable look on his face. “Yeah…” he says, his words long and drawn out. “Just got that. Oops. I…’m about to puke.” As much as Nicky loves Joe and would do anything for him, the heads-up is nice. He steps aside and avoids getting barfed on, though the pale sand is not so lucky. “Ohhhh, I’m gonna have to pray about this,” Joe groans. “Maybe no more strangers’ weddings… Or at least no eating what they put out… I feel like Persephone.”

Nicky is far from sober himself, but between the two of them they manage to get away from the party and sit down, leaning against a sturdy palm tree. Nicky leans his head back and tries to clear it. It’s been a long time since he’s been drunk. Usually he’s better about knowing how much alcohol he’s had. Though, to be fair, usually he knows in advance, or at the very least can tell, when it’s alcohol he’s drinking. He stares out at the party and sees someone’s child, no older than ten or eleven, taking one of the cups of the fig and honey liquor. “Uh oh…” he hums. “That’s probably bad.” But he can’t make himself get up right this moment, so he just looks back at Joe. His face is flushed, and Nicky thinks it’s very cute, and he’s realizing that they’re pretty close together.

“Hey, Joe?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“I gotta tell you something.”

“Yeah? What?”

He leans forward and plants his hands on the side of Joe’s face and pulls him in and kisses him, and he knows instantly that it is  _ not  _ a good kiss, that it is probably one of the worst he’s ever given, but he doesn’t really care that much. He can care later. Joe smiles, chuckles, but doesn’t pull away. Nicky feels his hand on his hip, and they stay there for a while. Joe pulls back suddenly, another queasy look overtaking his face. He turns away and vomits into the sand again, then turns back to Nicky.

“I’m gonna pass out now,” he says, and he does, slumping forward into Nicky’s arms.

“Oh, boy,” Nicky mutters. He resolves to find Booker, because it’s probably best if they go home now. He feels bad about leaving Joe passed out next to a tree, but Nicky himself is swaying a little as he walks and he doubts he’ll be able to find Booker in this crowd if he drags Joe along with him. 

Booker, for once, is by far more sober than the rest of them. Nicky brings him back to where Joe is still well and unconscious, and he hefts Joe over his shoulder and leads the way back to the villa. As Nicky drifts off, the realization that he kissed Joe hits him like a ton of bricks. Oh, God, what has he done? ...But he decides it’s a problem for the morning.

When morning does come, Nicky’s head throbs. He can tell Joe is worse off, hands squarely covering his eyes as they sit around the kitchen table. Andy, back by the time they get up, makes fun of them for getting hungover, but she gives them foul-looking mugs of some concoction she swears will help them feel better that Nicky doesn’t want to know the contents of.

“Is this poison? If you kill me, is it better when I come back?” Joe asks. 

“It’s not poison, but dying real quick might actually help. I’ve never done it on purpose,” she answers. “Be a shame to get blood on this nice floor, though, so you can power through it.”

Joe gives Andy a murderous look as he downs the mug. Nicky tries a tiny sip, but it’s everything he doesn’t want in his mouth, so he decides he can really power through.

He hasn’t looked directly at Joe this morning, isn’t sure how to broach the subject burning a bigger hole in his head than the hangover. Booker wanders off to do more big, important computer stuff, and since Nicky still doesn’t feel up for cooking lunch as he usually would, Andy heads out to pick up some food for the team. Alone with Joe, he gathers up the courage to speak to him.

“So…” he starts, staring down at his fingers drawing circles on the table. “Some of last night is a little hazy for me. How… how much do you remember?”

Joe lets out a long sigh, hunched forward to rest his face in his hands. Even when he is done, he is quiet for another drawn-out moment. “Gun to my head, none of it,” he says finally.

A weight disappears from Nicky’s chest. If this memory is his and his alone, he can pretend it never happened. He may even be able to convince himself it was a dream, and nothing has to change between him and Joe.

“I don’t think you need to worry too much,” Nicky tells him. “As far as I can remember, nothing interesting happened anyway.”

“I tried to go right back, but it took a couple of days to act normal around him again,” Nicky concludes.

“I bet you a million bucks he remembers,” Nile says the moment he’s done with his story.

“You didn’t see him,” Nicky replies. He says nothing else after that, because Nile has planted a terrible seed in his mind. He has spent some three decades certain he is the only one who can recall that night. If Joe remembers, too, that would be Nicky’s worst nightmare.


	6. Chapter 6

For a few days after seeing Andy and Nile off, Joe and Nicky remain at the house. Nicky does his best to use up the rest of the food while Joe begins looking for inspiration or purpose for their next destination. It proves hard to find without anything in mind, and Joe wonders if they should join Andy and Nile in Alexandria.

“What if we just get normal jobs for a bit?” Nicky asks one evening as he’s mashing salt and butter into a bowl of munavõi. “Might be easier to find something interesting if we’re not only looking for the kind of thing you need immortal soldiers for.”

Joe looks up from the laptop he’s working on. “You have anything in mind?”

Nicky shrugs, pressing a fork down into the bowl. “I don’t know, go dig ditches or something?”

“You want to dig ditches? And you think that’s a normal job?”

“It was just an example! Someone’s got to do it!”

“No, someone doesn’t,” he laughs. “Please, elaborate. Give me an example of when you would need to hire someone to dig a ditch.”

“We did it in World War I,” Nicky offers.

“Those were trenches.”

“You know what?” Nicky asks. “Shut up! Leave me alone.” He flicks a glob of potatoes at Joe, who swats it away to the ground. Joe leans over and picks it up, throwing it back and hitting Nicky square in the forehead. He feigns death, collapsing down onto the kitchen floor. “You’ve murdered me,” he croaks. “I’m dead. Forever. Because you killed me.”

“Oh, no, whatever will I do? I have blood on my hands now!” Joe cries, just as overdramatic. “I have to get rid of the evidence! I have to throw your body in the lake! This will haunt me for the rest of my days.”

He stands and crosses the kitchen to Nicky and leans over, ready to pick him up in a fireman’s carry, when Nicky wipes the potato off his face and presses it into Joe’s.

“My final revenge…” he says, then lets his arm fall limp on the ground. 

Joe clutches his chest, stumbling back. “Aah! No!” He sinks down, laying on the cool wood next to Nicky. “I always knew we were destined to be the end of each other…” Resting his head on his arm, he closes his eyes and lies still.

They lay there for a few moments before Nicky starts laughing, and then Joe’s laughing, too, and Nicky composes himself just enough to manage, “Maybe we should go be actors instead.”

“Oh, we’d take the world by storm, for sure.”

“We couldn’t, we’d be too famous,” Nicky says. “We’d be the downfall of the theater. Nobody would be able to even try acting after us, because they’d know they could never hold a candle to how great we are.”

_ I’d ruin theater forever with you _ , Joe thinks.

They don’t set out to cause the downfall of acting, nor do they go look for a field in which to dig ditches. Joe finds a research ship headed south from Portugal on a nine-week expedition to tag striped dolphins. It has a pair of openings for a cook and a navigator, so Joe gets them aboard. The climate they arrive to in Faro is comfortable and familiar, and the rest of the crew and research team are bright and welcoming in the two days they spend in port before setting off. It’s been some time since Joe has been at sea, but it brings back fond memories of travel in times when the world seemed a lot bigger, memories even from his life long, long ago when he had no reason to believe he was more than a mortal man.

Though he’s technically a crew member and not part of the research team, the lead researcher, Dr. Jumana Kader, quickly befriends him, often chatting away with him and watching while he double-checks the navigation software. She’s a middle-aged Moroccan woman who teaches marine biology at the University of Porto, and she’s more than happy to talk Joe’s ear off about the evolutionary history of aquatic mammals. Her voice is soothing, and her Arabic reminds Joe of the way his favorite older sister spoke so many years ago.

When he mentions that he is from Morocco, too, she playfully hits his arm and asks why he didn’t say so sooner. They share memories of home, and while Joe’s spent enough modern time in Marrakesh to pass himself off as being from there, he’s glad she’s from Oujda, in the eastern part of the country, so he can write off any small details he lets slip from his true childhood as regional differences. The area he actually grew up in is more or less Rabat now, but when he lived there the city did not exist at all. He hasn’t been back since the first few decades of his immortality, and the last time he saw the area the citadel was only half-built.

Most of all, Jumana likes to hear his stories from all the far-reaching places he’s traveled. He learns that she’s been all around the Mediterranean and only sailed about that far on other research trips, but has always wanted to travel further. While Joe doesn’t tell her about  _ all _ the places he’s been, he still impresses her with the varied places he decides to mention.

“It certainly sounds like you certainly keep yourselves busy. Well, if this little group of friends you’ve got ever want another member, you can always give me a call,” she teases. “I’d love to meet your other friends, and I can make myself useful, even if it’s just to get grant money.” He’s pretty sure she thinks Andy and Nile -- even though many of the stories he tells her should include Booker, he never mentions him -- are other sailors, regular coworkers of his with whom he’s just extra close, and he doesn’t correct her.

“Oh, the next time I’m even a little fuzzy on dolphin migration patterns, you’ll be my first contact,” he promises. He doesn’t tell her that his words are necessarily empty and that will never actually happen, doesn’t tell her he’ll lose her number as soon as he switches out for the next phone, doesn’t tell her he will, more likely than not, live so long he will someday forget her no matter how hard he tries to remember. For now, they are friends. There’s no need to sour that on her end or waste it on his.

When Jumana’s busy doing science, sequestered in the lab or out on a dive, and nothing needs doing with the sonar or the navigation system, Joe spends his time wherever he can find Nicky, usually either in the little common room or the kitchens. It’s not so much on purpose, but he always ends up there as if drawn by a magnet. They’re rarely alone together, always within earshot of and, more often, joined in conversation by someone else, but it feels wrong not to find him. 

Nicky’s always been less inclined to travel by ocean than Joe, and it takes him days to get his sea legs. Joe’s forgotten how entertaining it can be to see him wobbling around, pitching to the side at any swell of the water below them. He defends him from the teasing of the rest of the crew anyway, even though he cracks a smile, too, as soon as he turns away. Once Nicky can move around the ship without losing his balance, though, he fits right in with the crew, all full of old stories on par with those the two of them have collected over the centuries. 

The easy way they all fall into a routine, moving around each other in a delicate dance, is almost eerily reminiscent of the bonds that connect him to his immortal companions. It isn’t that Joe doesn’t believe in destiny -- it feels impossible for him not to, with the life he leads -- but he finds it can be hard to see it as something that is not his alone, as something that affects other people beyond those it has granted supernatural life. Here, among these other people who so easily and intuitively respond to each other, who understand their colleagues without even noticing, he feels reminded that whatever abilities he may have, they do not separate him from what it means to be human.

Unfortunately for him, there is another way the crew reminds him of Andy and, especially, Nile. They can see, clear as day, that he doesn’t see Nicky as just a friend, just a coworker,  _ just _ any one thing, and they aren’t afraid to prod him about it. It seems as soon as they stop teasing Nicky for his ineptitude at sea, they’re converging like a pack of wolves on Joe.

“Oh, where’s your boyfriend?” one of the junior researchers asks, just earnest enough Joe can’t quite tell if she’s mocking him, when she joins him in the common room one morning while Nicky isn’t there.

“Who?” Joe asks, even though he knows damn well who.

“Nico. Is he not…?”

Joe shakes his head. “No, we’re not together. Not like that, anyway.”

“Oh.” She opens a book to a marked page, but does not yet begin to read. “Sorry to assume, you just seem so close.”

“Yes, well, we’ve known each other practically our whole lives.”

It’s a conversation he has, in some form, with at least half the people aboard, and each time he grows more self-conscious, more discomforted by his own transparency. 

One evening, as the expedition is drawing to a close -- they’re sailing north now, making their way back towards Faro -- Joe’s spending a free hour in the common room, empty for once, writing in an almost-full journal. As he writes and rewrites the same line in a poem he’s written a million times before in a million different ways in a million different languages, chasing the impossible perfect version, Nile’s words from a few months ago echo in his mind.  _ Maybe you’re just in love with the idea of the chase. _ He has spent every moment since that day trying to prove to himself that she’s wrong. He has spent every moment since that day terrified she’s right.

His hand moves along the page subconsciously, and when he reads the words they bring to mind another moment, mirroring this one as history so often does.

The sixteenth century, more or less halfway through, has been a productive one. As always, Andromache has an ear for news brought from every corner of the world and a knack for knowing at the first whispers where their talents will prove useful. Yusuf has been glad for the efficiency, as it’s given him plenty of free time to spend enjoying what will eventually be known as the Renaissance. He has spent the centuries of his life so far keeping up with the artistic and literary movements of the Islamic world, and if an Italian movement begins to spread throughout Europe just around the time he decides it may be worthwhile to pay attention to the art of other peoples too, well, that’s just a convenient coincidence.

He writes most days, and today is no exception; although, it is not poetry he writes, but a letter. He is alone in the courtyard of the house they have been staying in for coming up on two decades -- they will have to leave Florence soon, for their unchanging faces will soon draw too much attention -- and letting the thoughts that have built up behind his eyes flow out onto the page. He does not know how long he is there; time fades away into a blurry background, leaving only his hands and his heart and the paper in focus. 

_ How do I describe how I love you? I can no longer remember a time when I did not. I cannot imagine a time, even lifetimes from now, when I will cease to. I cannot fathom that I was an artist even before I knew you, because I have been able to draw inspiration from nowhere but you since. It has all been for you -- I love you to creation, to beauty. I would rebuild the whole world if I could make it more pleasing to you. My love for you has created me, in turn, and I would not be the same man if I did not have it. _

_ There are so many things I have never said, and yet I have said them all more times than I can count. Were I a braver man, you would have known them long ago. But I am not, it seems, so I have kept them restrained in my soul as long as I have wished, more than anything, to say them. I could fill an ocean with all the things I’ve never said, all the things I have only divulged to a page that will never see another eye. They were never meant to be mine. They were always meant to be yours.  _

When he is done, he has covered four pages front and back and he feels that, if he wanted to, he could fill another hundred pages with his thoughts. He knows that, before long, he will, even if it is not a part of this letter in particular, even if it he does not write it here or now. For now, he is satisfied, and a dark cloud is creeping across the sky, and he would prefer not to be rained on, so he returns inside. Nicolò and Andromache sit near a window, nodding to him as he enters. He returns the greeting, closing the door a moment before a gentle rain begins to fall outside. Yusuf makes his way upstairs and enters Nicolò’s room.

He stands at the foot of Nicolò’s unmade bed, looking around the room for a place to leave his letter. This will be the time he does it, he tells himself. He has held his emotions too close for too long. He resolves he will leave it on the bed, and he stands and holds it and does not move.

Familiar footfalls echo downstairs, and Yusuf looks down at the letter clutched between his fingers.  _ Leave it _ , he tells himself,  _ put it on the bed and let him read it _ . He hears Nicolò start up the stairs, and Yusuf darts out of his room, the pages still held firmly in his hand. He steps into his own room and curses himself for backing out yet again. He goes to a small chest in the corner of the room and unlocks it, placing the letter inside. The chest is almost full, a record of every undelivered confession he has written over these past few years, a tribute to his own inability to let his love out. He closes the chest and locks it.

Even five hundred years later, Joe remembers the weight of that paper in his hand, the way it felt much heavier than the pages themselves. He remembers every fiber of his body trying with all its might to put it down and leave it, to deliver it, but some force from even deeper within him holding him back from giving it away, even indirectly, even to the very person it was for, had always been for in every form it had ever taken.

It occurs to him that when they left Florence, he didn’t bring the chest with him. He wonders if that safe house is still there, if he could go and find those relics of his own past were he to look. He wonders what good it would do. He is still stuck in the same inescapable trap holding his mouth shut as he has always been. He does not know what it will take to break himself free.


	7. Chapter 7

Nicky’s barely been back on land for two hours when his phone rings. He answers it to Nile’s voice, low and excited.

“You’ve got to come to Alexandria,” she says the second he picks up. “You will never believe what I found.”

“Hello to you too.”

“You sound like my granddad, saying that. Can you come or not?”

He looks around the port of Faro, trying to remember their nearest current contact. “Probably, yes, what’s going on? Are you and Andy alright?”

Joe emerges from a shop, paper-wrapped sandwiches in his hand. He points at the phone with a raised eyebrow, and Nicky mouths “Nile” at him.

“Yeah, we’re good. Been doing some light travel, a couple other jobs. She’s saying she’ll be ready to move on soon, you know her.”

“So you want us to come meet back up with you?”

“I was only talking about you, but you can bring Joe if you want, lover boy. The surprise is just for you, though, sorry.”

Nicky rolls his eyes at the nickname, both annoyed and glad Nile seems not to have changed a bit in the couple months since they’ve seen each other. “So it’s a surprise now?” He sighs. Oh, kids. “Sure, we can get there in…” He lowers the phone from his ear and turns to Joe. “How long do you think it will take us to get to Alexandria? Nile’s asking us to meet them there.”

Joe considers it. “Don’t we have that lady with all the planes in Málaga? We could probably get there today and head over to Aleks by tomorrow.”

“Give us a day,” Nicky tells her. In the background, he hears something muffled he can’t make out in Andy’s voice. 

“Andy says to bring her a souvenir,” Nile says. “See you guys tomorrow.”

Nicky hangs up, taking the sandwich Joe hands him, acutely aware of the moment their fingers brush together. 

“How are they doing?” Joe asks as they begin to head for the train station. 

“Sounds like they’re fine. Nile says she has a surprise for me, so I’m not sure if I should be nervous, though.”

Joe waves his hand. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine. What’s the worst that happens, you get yourself killed?”

They laugh, and as they keep walking his eyes drift down to Joe’s hand, swinging slightly with his gait. They are walking in step, as they always do, without meaning to, and it should be  _ so easy  _ just to take his hand and never let go and he would give anything for it to feel doable, for it to feel as easy as he  _ knows _ it should be. But if he can’t make himself do it, then isn’t that a sign he shouldn’t? Or is thinking so hard about it a sign he should?

He cannot  _ wait _ until Nile and Andy are back around to give him anything else to think about.

When they arrive in Alexandria, it’s a pleasantly warm day. They meet Andy and Nile for coffee and swap summaries of their time apart, falling back into a group rapport as they always do no matter how long it’s been. There’s a comfort to it Nicky has never been able to quite describe, but that runs deep in the veins of the group, thrumming between them like a shared heartbeat. Andy chides him for not bringing her any presents, and he protests that he’s been on a boat, what, did she want a cup of seawater?-- and they go back to a well-kept apartment and talk about where they’ll go next and don’t decide on anything because they keep getting sidetracked and this is the life Nicky loves, just doing nothing with his favorite people in the world.

Nile tugs him aside late into the evening as he’s heading towards a bedroom. “You good to go do our thing tomorrow?” she asks.

“Sure, yes,” he replies, a sense of wariness bubbling back up at the prospect of whatever mysterious “surprise” she has planned. “Can I at least know where we’re going?”

She hums in consideration. “Mmm, sure. We’re going to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It’s this library-museum-archive place I’ve been going to brush up on all the history shit you guys talk about and I stumbled on something I think you will consider… worth your time.”

“I do not trust that tone of voice,” he says, then cracks a smile, “but I’ll see you tomorrow.” He continues on to bed.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is beautiful, and Nile weaves through it like she belongs there. Nicky struggles to keep up as she leads him through the Manuscripts Museum, making her determined way to something that still remains a mystery. She greets several of the employees by name, and they seem to recognize her as well.

“How much time have you been spending here?” Nicky asks.

“Not as much as it seems like, actually, I just sort of got myself a bunch of researcher credentials so I could go look at more cool stuff, and I made some friends.” She makes a point to speak in Russian, and Nicky realizes it’s so she won’t be eavesdropped on. He hums in approval, both at what she says and how she says it. 

They enter a room with shelves of books and tables and chairs, some of which have computers sitting atop them labeled the Rare Books Reading Room. Nile greets a librarian as they enter.

“It’s good to see you again, Dr. Saab,” she says. “This is Nicky, one of my colleagues. I think I may have mentioned him before.”

“And you as well, Ms. Freeman,” Dr. Saab replies. “Nice to meet you, Nicky. Now, what can I help you with this morning?”

“Do you remember the book I was studying a few days ago? The collection of Florentine poems and letters?”

Dr. Saab nods. “Ah, yes, you’d like to see it again?”

“Yes, please.” 

The librarian brings them to a table and leaves to find the book, and Nicky turns to Nile. “You brought me here to see an old Italian book? I’m not even Florentine.”

“Just trust me, dude, you’re gonna like this old Italian book. I already photocopied all the best parts, but you gotta see the whole thing.”

Dr. Saab returns with a volume bound in simple brown leather and sets it down on the table before them, taking the next seat. “This is an interesting volume,” he says. “It is a collection of several different styles of poetry and prose, and even includes some personal letters, all of which seem to be written by the same author, a Muslim painter living in Florence. Based on the dates included on some of the letters, they span about a twenty-year period from the early- to mid-1500s. The interesting part is that, despite being written in several languages, they were all compiled in the same book without being translated.” Nile opens the book and turns it to Nicky, and he begins to read.

“According to the publisher, after al-Kaysani died--” Dr. Saab continues.

“Sorry, what?” Nicky interrupts, his attention torn away from the sonnet before him.

“Oh, the author. Have you heard of him? Yusuf al-Kaysani? He isn’t very well known, as far as I can tell, but I suppose if this is your area of study you may be more well-read on lesser-known Florentine artists.”

Nicky feels as if his voice has been stolen away, unable to find any words. Their tenure in Florence during the Renaissance rises up in his mind, a period he rarely remembers. Nile, at least, was right -- his interest in this book skyrockets. “I…” he says.

“Nicky’s a biographer,” Nile offers. “He’s been working on a series on unknown artists and writers from the sixteenth century, and he thought there wasn’t enough record of this al-Kaysani to include him.”

“Yes,” Nicky says, nodding along. “Exactly. I just… I’ve seen one of his paintings and I thought he might be a promising subject. I thought I had to give up because of a lack of record, but maybe there’s more I have to learn about him.”

“In that case, I’m glad we could be helpful. As I was saying, after al-Kaysani died, these writings were found in his home. It seems some of his friends pushed to have them published, but only a few copies were made. I believe there is a library in Florence with a partial copy, but I don’t know that any others survive.”

He quiets down, chatting a bit with Nile as Nicky reads. The first few poems have a familiar air to them, and Nicky knows they are Yusuf’s,  _ his _ Yusuf’s, work. They strike a chord in his heart as he reads; they are good, of course they are, because Joe has been a beautiful writer for such a long time, and they are so lonely. Were he better with words, they are the kinds of things Nicky would write, laments of a love so close yet so out of reach. Nicky tries to recall the lovers Joe took during those years, mostly other artists thriving in the changing culture of the city -- which of them had inspired in him such art? He tries not to let himself be jealous, but he wonders if Joe still remembers whoever it was, still thinks fondly on whatever fleeting time they shared.

“Do you remember what you told me before I left Tallinn?” Nile asks in Italian as he turns a page. He turns to her. “You said when it comes to Joe, you need forever.” She takes the book and flips through a few more pages before handing it back to him. “Now tell me I was wrong.”

When he looks down to the letter she’s turned to, he feels as if his heart has stopped. The name at the top is his. He pulls the book closer, frantically reading on.

_ My dearest Nicolò-- _

_ I write to you in an attempt to make a confession, one I have tried to make again and again and always failed. I give myself excuses to explain my inability to admit to you the way I feel, and I know they do no justice to the state of my heart but I give them to myself nonetheless.  _

_ From the moment we ceased to be enemies, I knew I belonged to you and you to me. The circumstances of our meeting could not have been anything but destiny. When I first took your hand not in an attempt to best you, but to understand you, I learned the most important thing I ever have in the near-unfathomably long time I have lived -- I am in love with you. _

_ How do I describe how I love you? I can no longer remember a time when I did not. I cannot imagine a time, even lifetimes from now, when I will cease to. I cannot fathom that I was an artist even before I knew you, because I have been able to draw inspiration from nowhere but you since. It has all been for you -- I love you to creation, to beauty. I would rebuild the whole world if I could make it more pleasing to you. My love for you has created me, in turn, and I would not be the same man if I did not have it. _

_ A part of me feels it would be an injustice to keep you for my own -- if you have given me such inspiration, should I not let you give the same to anyone else who might know you? In an attempt to justify it to myself, I have looked to anyone else, searching fruitlessly for another who could give me that same spark. If it is not yours alone to give, I think, I would not feel so selfish to love you. I do not know that I need to write it out in such explicit terms, but I have not found anyone who can hold a candle to you, the keeper of my heart. _

_ So I have kept myself from you, and every hour I wish I had not let myself grown accustomed to it. It is the most unbearable thing in the world not to have you as mine, and yet I know nothing else. _

_ There are so many things I have never said, and yet I have said them all more times than I can count. Were I a braver man, you would have known them long ago. But I am not, it seems, so I have kept them restrained in my soul as long as I have wished, more than anything, to say them. I could fill an ocean with all the things I’ve never said, all the things I have only divulged to a page that will never see another eye. They were never meant to be mine. They were always meant to be yours. _

Nicky turns to Nile, unable to even be annoyed by the smug expression on her face. “I think there’s a conversation I need to have,” he says.

“I told you so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! I think I should be able to get it done by tomorrow!


	8. Chapter 8

While Nile drags Nicky to whatever it is she wanted to show him, Andy goes out too. “Don’t burn the city down,” she teases when Joe declines to tag along (he has a feeling she would prefer some time alone anyway). He ends up setting out to go on a short walk to pick up lunch for himself, and gets wildly sidetracked walking around a city he hasn’t seen in a century. By the time he’s finally making his way back to the apartment, evening has fallen and the lights are just beginning to flick on in bright speckles along the streets.

The apartment, at first glance, seems empty. Joe wonders for a moment whether he should try to find out where the others went or wait for them. He steps into his bedroom, switches the light on. There’s a folder on the bed, left there, he assumes, by one of his companions. He picks it up and flips it open to see a photocopied page, and after a moment he recognizes it.

These are his words.

He knows he did not type them -- he wrote them long before it was an option, and he tends to write on paper even now -- but they are his, he is certain of it.

A soft knock comes from behind him and he spins around to see Nicky rapping his knuckles against the doorframe. As their eyes meet, Nicky’s brow slightly furrowed and one corner of his mouth turned up, Joe’s eyes soften. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Nicky asks.

“Where did you find this?” Joe answers with a question of his own, raising the folder.

“Nile did.” He leans his shoulder into the doorframe. “Stop dodging my question,” he adds, breaking into a smile.

“I just… never knew how to say it right. It feels too important to mess up.”

“I really can’t talk,” Nicky says. “I mean, I’ve been just as bad.” Joe smiles, breathing out a small laugh. “I think this is more than a little overdue, but… I think I’m in love with you.”

“You think?” Joe asks, crossing his arms like a petulant child. “A thousand years and the best I can get is ‘you think?’” He shakes his head. “Maybe that’s why I never said anything. You’re insufferable,” he teases, but his heart is pounding and he’s beaming and his head is racing because he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing and it strikes him that despite all his desperate attempts, in the end it’s Nicky who gives  _ him _ a letter even if he’s the one who wrote it in the first place, and--

“You know what I mean,” Nicky whines.

“I do,” he says. “But I want you to say it.”

Nicky rolls his eyes. “Okay, fair,” he laughs. “I’m in love with you. I have been. For…” he shakes his head, trying to quantify it. “I don’t even know. A long time. Even when I’ve tried to pretend I wasn’t.” 

Joe tosses the folder to the bed, turning his shoulders to face Nicky. “I guess you don’t need me to tell you I’m in love with you, too, but I think I should anyway. And I do know how long it’s been. I’ve loved you all the way since 1099.”

Nicky purses his lips and pauses for a moment. “I kissed you once,” he says. “In Malta. At someone’s wedding.”

“I know,” Joe says. 

“You  _ know _ ?”

“I remember it. Not much else from that wedding, but I remember that.”

“You told me you didn’t!” Nicky stares incredulously at him. “It was so bad. I did such a bad job.”

Joe laughs. “Yeah, you did.” He doesn’t remember the  _ quality _ of that kiss, just that it happened, but he’s reveling a little in the pink tinging Nicky’s face at the prospect of him remembering what was probably just a forgettably sloppy kiss. He takes a step forward. “But you can always try again.”

Nicky hesitates for an instant, then pushes himself off of the doorway and crosses the threshold, and then he’s standing in front of him, and Nicky’s arms are wrapped around him and they’re kissing and he feels like he’s never going to be let go and he doesn’t want anything else. He cards through Nicky’s hair, starting to get shaggy, and wonders if he could convince him to grow it out. There will be plenty of time for that later. For now, it’s just the two of them in this room, the warmth radiating off their bodies, the breath shared between them.

That cold certainty that has plagued Joe for centuries, that for however close he kept his friends he would ultimately be alone with the contents of his heart, shatters. In its place he feels an overwhelming relief, a sense of excitement and hope.

They hear the door to the apartment when Nile returns, and again when Andy does, but behind the door of Joe’s room -- he wonders if he should even consider it just his anymore, since he doubts he’s going to be sleeping alone anymore -- they don’t acknowledge it. 

For a long time, Joe questioned whether he deserved to have Nicky, wondered if he was a better asset to the world for his longing. There is no question in his mind as they lay, pressed close in a bed made for one, that he deserves this. It has been such a long time coming. If their unending lives are a product of destiny, if it was fate that brought the two of them together in the first place, then this is a part of that destiny as well. He wraps his arms around Nicky’s waist and rests his chin on his shoulder. He can feel the slow rise and fall of his chest, the curve of his back, the way they fit together like they have always been meant to be this way. 

Joe could still fill a book with all the things he’s never said. But he’s ripped off a band-aid now, and he knows, finally, for a fact, that he won’t hold his tongue any longer.


End file.
